Columns

Without a doubt, this has been a trying year for South Carolina. We have witnessed and experienced tough times – from the tragic killings at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston that left our great state shaken to its core, to the recent floods that damaged many areas across the state.

We have endured the deaths of Walter Scott and Officer Greg Alia. It has truly been one of the most emotional years in our history.

A federal program designed to put African-American and female business people on a competitive footing with their white male counterparts in one of the largest “Good ‘Ole Boy” networks around – highway construction contracts – is profiting the most powerful white male legislator in South Carolina – the goodest, oldest boy around, one might say.

What a wonderful time of year! Or, is it? For many, it is, but for many others, it isn’t wonderful at all.

For some, it is a reminder of a painful Christmas in the past. Perhaps the death of a loved one occurred during the Christmas season, and now, each year when it rolls around, it is nothing more than a horrific memory from a bygone day.

We seldom hear the word tyrant anymore, except perhaps to describe a spoiled child or unreasonable boss. Language has become so soft and powerless that, while it may not offend, neither does it convey much.

These days Americans cringe at intensity in political language. That’s understandable given the constant onslaught of material designed to get the attention of donors, activists and voters. And no doubt there’s a lot of anger in our country, which is increasingly volatile and dangerously unfocused.

The Lancaster Area Coalition for the Homeless has been working hard to expand services for the homeless in our county, and we need your help in doing so.
The coalition is pleased to announce the opening of the Lancaster Warming Center, which will begin operating as soon as we can get volunteers in place.
The winter months are a time when the most vulnerable members of our community are most vulnerable to the elements. We will need much more community support moving forward, and we are offering many opportunities for the community to get involved.

There is a dangerous, revolutionary group that has a long history of violence and is driven by a fanatical religious belief that they were chosen by God. They have infiltrated our state and country and threaten our way of life and our very existence.
We must, at a minimum, make those who are here register, establish surveillance on their places of worship and keep others from entering our country.
I’m talking about the Presbyterians.

Once again, activists are addressing drug and gun violence. After reading the “Slayings Provoke Activists” article in the Dec. 9 Lancaster News and thinking on this problem, I believe it’s not the drugs and guns that they need to focus on, but the attitudes that young people are growing up with.
It’s the bullying all children receive at the hands of others from babyhood on. It’s children absorbing all that “adults” do. And if you’re a little one, anyone taller is an adult to you.

“Until the arrival of Joe Riley, Charleston was a sleepwalking, underachieving city with its eyes fastened on a past where its citizens began the most calamitous war in American history. The story of Joe Riley is the story of the renaissance of a city restored to greatness by the dauntless vision of a single man.”

In 1966 when I graduated from Presbyterian College, the United States was behind Russia in the space race. Russia had developed Sputnik, the first Earth satellite.
The National Defense Education Act was funded, and a number of us received scholarships under this program so that psychologists could be educated and then sent into the community. The sole purpose of this law was to help identify gifted and talented science students so that the United States could catch up in the space race. Our country is currently behind internationally in science and math.